The wrong prescription for drug affordability

This week the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is scheduled to consider the Medication Affordability and Patent Integrity Act. Despite its name, the act would do nothing to actually lower prescription drug prices or improve drug patents.

Congress is considering the bill because Americans have long complained about high drug prices. Lawmakers want to be able to claim they’re doing something about the problem, especially in an election year. And “medication affordability” and “patent integrity” sound great in a campaign ad.

But a clever bill name won’t make brand-name medicines more affordable. Instead, the bill would create new regulatory burdens on biotech companies, making it harder and taking longer to develop the next generation of treatments. This legislation flies in the face of President Trump’s promise to dramatically reduce government-imposed regulatory burdens.

The legislation would require drug companies to provide additional certifications and disclosures to both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, with the goal of ensuring that information shared with one agency is also shared with the other. But the two agencies receive somewhat different manufacturer information because they serve a different purpose. The Patent Office doesn’t need the reams of information — including clinical-trial outcomes — that the Food and Drug Administration requires.

It would also enable generic drug companies to overturn pharmaceutical patents in court by alleging that brand-name manufacturers failed to fully comply with the new requirements.

The bill’s supporters assert that pharmaceutical........

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